Book Excerpts

ARE YOU AN OSTRICH BY ANDI THOMAS & ALEXANDER NETHERTON

The strangest thing happened in the Premier League this weekend. The top of the most exciting, most volatile, most unpredictable, most explosive league in the world suffered a remarkable, astounding, unforeseen, crazy outbreak of something that looks a bit like... normality? Weird.

Chelsea and City duked one another to a 1-1 draw that, while suiting Chelsea more in terms of the title race, and suiting Mourinho more in his ongoing mission to crush the spirit out of the Premier League like a large man using an overripe grapefruit as a pointed threat, wasn't a terrible result for City. The Champions went to Stamford Bridge in poor form and left with a point, and no amount of exploding citrus fruit can take that away from them. Or can it? No.

THE AGONY & THE ECSTASY BY RICHARD FOSTER

Although the modern Play-Offs were introduced in the mid 1980s, the concept’s roots stretch back to the very beginnings of league football in England when a similar idea was used some ninety-odd years before. William McGregor, the Scottish founder of the Football League, was influenced by the model used by American sports such as baseball in which playoffs were employed to determine the Championship from the outset in the 1880s. The adaptation of the system was distinctively British in its execution as it concentrated on the movement between divisions rather than determining the champions.

PUNDIT COLOURING BY MICK KINLAN & RICHARD BELLIS

Quite literally, Pundit Colouring gives you the chance to put words into your favourite pundits mouths! Features your Nevilles, your Savages, your Linekers, your Redknapps, your Kamaras and many, many more. Here's a look inside:

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JUVENTUS: A HISTORY IN BLACK AND WHITE BY ADAM DIGBY

Football is a game of identity. Clubs are instantly recognisable through imagery, icons and by the colours they wear. Before the sport became omnipresent on television and the Internet, where fans were born and grow up supporting their local club, these identities were woven through generations of families and friends. Like many of football's grandest clubs, Juventus can point to the humblest of origins, far removed from the bright lights and multi-millionaire players gracing the sport today.

THIS DOES NOT SLIP BY ANDI THOMAS & ALEXANDER NETHERTON

Week 6

Strange times in Manchester. By strange, we mean ‘hilarious for everybody else’. On Saturday, both teams contrived to lose in distinct but disappointing fashion. City, for their part, decided to go for low comedy, Joe Hart conceding the winner by charging off his line in the manner of an inadequate goalkeeper attempting to assert his way out of a slump in form, and failing. United, by contrast, decided to embrace bleak, noirish horror, seemingly bamboozled by West Bromwich Albion’s ability to pass the ball at pace to one another.

FROM THE BACK PAGE TO THE FRONT ROOM BY ROGER DOMENEGHETTI

A significant development in the television marketplace occurred the following year when the Independent Broadcasting Authority awarded five ‘direct broadcast to satellite’ (DBS) licences to British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB), a conglomerate that included names like Granada, Virgin, the magazine firm Reed International which had owned The Daily Mirror, and the French media company Chargeurs. This meant that for the first time there was a viable third bidder in the marketplace for the football rights. The American experience showed that there were three driving forces in the success of pay-TV: porn, the latest movies and exclusive sports rights.

Falling for Football: Cameroon 1990 by Greg Theoharis

If I were being really lazy, there would be only two words required for the essay you are about to read. These two words would unlock a wealth of memories if you happen to be in your mid-thirties or upwards. If you are younger and have even a slight passing interest in football, you’ll have heard about and seen the footage of the feats undertaken by the team I’m about to rhapsodise. I could significantly reduce the process of summoning up the requisite vocabulary and self-editing that is the chosen purgatory of the frustrated wordsmith. My word count would be drastically diminished, much to the annoyance of the editors of this book. Those words would immediately render redundant the need to even partake in this business of writing, because by committing the words ‘Roger’ and ‘Milla’ to print, my work here is more or less done.

Saving The Test by Mike Jakeman

There is only one contender for the unofficial role of the father of modern cricket and his name is Kerry Packer. The hulking Australian has been in his grave for the best part of a decade, but his influence continues to be felt every time cricket appears on television. His World Series Cricket introduced a bewildering number of innovations within its two-year lifespan: night-time matches, a white ball, fielding circles, coloured clothing, drop-in pitches, cameras at both ends of the ground and microphones in the stumps. But more than any of these, the real legacy of WSC has been the introduction of competition to the process of awarding broadcasting rights.

IBWM: The First Two Years - Jeff Livingstone's Introduction

Growing up in North East England in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, football was a trip to St James’ Park to see my local team, Newcastle United. While it was cheap for my dad to take me, the standard of football in the old English Second Division wasn’t the greatest. Uninspiring? Maybe, but it didn’t matter.

The Football Tourist by Stuart Fuller

I woke up and tentatively opened one eye. Something didn't feel quite right. Firstly, I had to think about where I was. The bright light, the cold hard floor and a towel as a pillow suggested that I was in a bathroom. A hotel bathroom. A Dutch hotel bathroom. I carried out a quick assessment to ensure everything else was in some sort of order.